The Crossroads
by Jaywings
Summary: When the Doctor visits a strange town to investigate a world-famous scientist whose experiments may sometimes be regarded as... questionable, the TARDIS vanishes and leaves him behind with no idea where it has gone or who might be behind its disappearance. *This is a crossover between Invader Zim, Doctor Who, and Phineas and Ferb.
1. Prologue

A/N: A three-way crossover between Invader Zim, Doctor Who, and Phineas and Ferb. The title is subject to change.

* * *

A sound such as this one had never been heard in the town before. It was sort of a whirring, breezy, whispering noise. Impossible to describe, really. Some called it the sound of the universe.

There was only one thing that sounded like that.

Right next to a street corner, a small structure appeared from nothing. Its materialization caused it to glimmer slightly in the drizzling rain. A blue box. _The_ blue box. No one paid any mind to it, of course. No one ever paid any mind to anything, in that town.

The door of the blue police box opened inward and a man stepped outside, glancing around. The surroundings did not seem to impress him. "Well, it doesn't _look_ like the place where a so-called brilliant scientist might live," he mused. Then he paused. There was no real reason to be talking out loud. The blue door swung closed again behind him.

He reached into the inner pocket of his long brown trench coat and pulled out the newspaper clipping again. Yes, the scientist. He had apparently been doing experiments for ages, some of which seemed a bit… questionable. Worth a look. Some of the stuff he made looked like technology that was far too advanced for humans in this time. This guy might be an alien. Or controlled by aliens. After all, there didn't seem to be any pictures of him without half his face being obscured by tinted goggles and the tall collar of a lab coat, a common warning sign.

Well, okay, not really. Or at all, actually. But it was a _little_ suspicious. Now to find him. Who was the right person to ask about a brilliant and technologically advanced but highly or at least slightly suspect scientist?

Well, there was a guy walking across the street.

"'Scuse me, could I ask you a question?" he said, making a beeline toward the guy with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The guy stopped and stared at him. "Great, thanks. Has there been anything unusual going on around here lately?"

"Huh?" The guy continued to stare.

"Oh! So sorry." The trench coat-wearing man plunged his hand into his other pocket and pulled out a thin wallet with a single blank piece of paper in it. He quickly showed it to the guy and then put it away again. "I'm the Doctor. Doing a routine… investigation… thing. So? Anything strange? Unusual? Alien?"

"…Huh?"

Not only was the guy staring without comprehension, he also had a glazed-over look in his eye and perhaps a spot of drool on his chin. Mind control. Definitely mind control.

"Right." The Doctor drew back a pace and straightened up. "I'm sorry. Whatever is going on here, I promise you, I'll put a stop to it. Is there anything you can tell me? No? …I'll just be on my way then."

He turned away and allowed the mind-controlled human to continue on his way, keeping a watch on him in the corner of his eye. There didn't seem to be anything _too _wrong there. Maybe he should follow that guy. Nah.

You know, at the moment he kind of just wanted to get out of the rain.

"Hey!"

He looked up to see a little black shape running toward him. As it approached he saw that actually it was a boy whose entire outfit, from his trench coat to his boots, was black. The only exception was the boy's light blue shirt.

"Oh, hello!" the Doctor said. "Who are you, then?"

The boy drew closer. He was wearing some sort of visor on his head so that it covered his eyes. Instead of answering the question, he faced the Doctor and lit up in recognition. "I knew it!" he said. "I _knew_ I was getting the right readings! Wait until I tell the Eyeballs about _this!_"

Whatever the boy was talking about, it didn't make much sense. But there were more pressing issues at hand. After he figured out what was going on here he could ask this kid why he wanted to show something to a bunch of eyeballs. "Listen, I have some questions. Do you know—"

The boy lifted the visor off his face. He was wearing glasses—and had put on the visor over his glasses, that couldn't have been very comfortable—and he was beaming in amazement. "You've got two hearts! You're _Gallifreyan!_"

The Doctor stared. "How could you possibly—"

The kid started pacing around him, looking him up and down like he was a fascinating ancient relic.

Which… maybe he was.

"I've read all about Gallifreyans!" the boy said. "What little there is to read, anyway. Most of it came from the databanks in Tak's computer and what I managed to hack from Zim's base. That actually wasn't very much, I guess Irkens and Time Lords didn't have much contact. Can all your cells really regenerate and bring you back to life if you die? What about that Time And Relative Dimension In Space? Do those really exist?"

"Wait, okay. How do you know all this?" The Doctor crouched down and took the kid's shoulder. The boy was really quite short.

"Oh, I've done the research," the boy said nonchalantly, as if discussions about near-extinct time travelling aliens were common for humans. "A few minutes ago I picked up readings that I'd never seen before and thought, 'What if it's a TARDIS?' …I mean, it was a long shot, but—"

The Doctor shook his head. "What? Readings? What readings? How old are you, ten?"

"Eleven," the boy replied. He took on that ecstatic look again. "I can't believe you're here! A real Time Lord!"

The Doctor stood up and looked around again. "Yes, I'm a real Time Lord. I'd ask why you were researching Gallifrey and how you even _knew _about it but frankly that might be a waste of time right now. Has there been anything strange going on around here, maybe involving mind control? And probably alien. Oh, and I don't believe I caught your name."

"Alien?" If it was possible, the kid looked even more excited at this. "You got my messages! _Finally_, someone _finally_ got my messages!" He took off down the sidewalk. "Yeah, come on, I can take you right to his house! He's an Irken, I can take you to his house! Oh, and my name's Dib!"

The Doctor considered this for a second as the kid drew further and further away. It was his only lead so far in whatever, if anything, was going on here. Besides, this kid knew about Gallifreyans. That alone was intriguing.

The Doctor followed.

* * *

"That's his house right there," Dib said, pointing across the street to a structure that looked like the three-dimensional version of a child's drawing of a house. "The day before Zim came to my class there was an empty lot there. The next day _that_ was there." He gestured to the house again. "Zim must've built it overnight somehow."

"And… Zim is the Irken you say has invaded the planet?" the Doctor clarified, trying to make sense of everything Dib had been talking about since they had left the area with the TARDIS. It was a bit difficult, since Dib had started discussing everything under the sun that had to do with aliens. Apparently paranormal research occupied a good chunk of this kid's life.

As for Irkens… The Irkens had always been somewhat low on the Doctor's radar. They were humanoid in appearance with insect features like antennae and giant buggy eyes… He had hardly ever bothered with them. Truthfully he didn't even know all that much about them.

Perhaps he had been wrong to not keep a closer watch on the little green insectoids.

"And this Zim really is a threat, is he?" the Doctor continued. "He's not just living on Earth for a bit of peace? Not that Earth is all that peaceful…"

The two of them were crouching behind the bushes across the street from the house. Dib leaned back on his knees and looked at the Doctor incredulously. "Zim's trying to take over the Earth! He might've succeeded by now if it wasn't for—"

The Doctor snorted. "One little alien? Taking over a planet? No one creature could ever do that. 'Cept maybe a Dalek, and even that's unlikely. But one Irken? Most of them aren't too much bigger than you are!"

Dib narrowed his eyes. "Well, even if he'd never be able to take over, he's still dangerous! He kidnaps people, performs experiments on them, he switched out some guy's brain for a squid brain and put a giant happiness probe in the head of this kid named Nick, and he's tried to kill _me_ multiple times…!"

"Hm, now _those_ are things that might need a stop put to them," the Doctor replied. He stood. "Well, truth be told this isn't what I came here to investigate. I was actually going to look into this scientist, Professor Membrane, and his experiments. Heard of him?"

"Yeah, that's my dad." Dib stood up too. "He's not an alien or anything. He doesn't even believe in aliens. So? Do you think you'll be able to do anything about Zim?"

"Really? He's your dad?" the Doctor said, ignoring the entire last part of Dib's remark. He looked Dib over. He couldn't tell if there was much resemblance between this boy and the scientist. After all, Membrane's face was always covered. Both of them did have spiky black hair, though. He supposed that should've been a giveaway.

There was some sort of commotion going on inside the house. Faint yelling could be heard. The yard in front of the house was quite a sight, too, covered with giant lawn gnomes and garish plastic flamingoes and… bloated puffer fish stuck on sticks in the lawn. Well, to each his own.

"Stay here," he said to Dib, although he was well aware that no one ever listened when he said things like that, and crossed the road to the strange alien house. There was a gap in the fence and a paved walkway leading up to the purple door. The four truly _giant_ lawn gnomes lined the path.

"Don't go one the lawn!" Dib called. Without moving his gaze from the gnomes the Doctor crouched down, picked up a loose stone and rolled it in his hand, then stood and threw it into the yard. Before it landed the eyes of the gnomes glowed red and tracked the stone in its arc. One of them raised an arm and blasted it with deadly precision, almost literally disintegrating it. The gnomes performed a quick scan of the yard, then reverted back to normal. Everything was quiet once more.

…Yes, perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on the Irkens.

Dib trotted up next to him. "That noise won't bring Zim out," he said. "I throw stuff in his yard all the time so he doesn't get suspicious anymore. Also his security perimeter doesn't extend past the fence, so he won't know we're here unless he looks."

"You've figured all this out by yourself, have you?" the Doctor asked, casting Dib a glance.

"I've taken a lot of notes." Dib lowered the visor thing over his eyes again and peered intently at the house. The Doctor figured that visor must be some sort of X-ray device. "Okay, he's inside yelling at his little robot minion," Dib said. "He hasn't noticed us and he won't come outside because rain burns his skin, see? We need a plan!"

"Wait, hold on," the Doctor said. "We can't just—"

"I've got it!" Dib raised the visor on his head again. "I've hacked into his databases on my laptop! I'll send him a message in an alien language, see if I can bring him outside despite the rain, and you can do whatever it is Time Lords do, and—"

"Hold _on!_" The Doctor put his hand on the top of the laptop that Dib had whipped out of a backpack he hadn't even noticed him wearing. "I want to know all the facts of this _before_ we—I—do anything. I need to—"

There was a shrill beeping sound.

Dib cringed. "What is _that?_"

What? No, it couldn't be. The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver with a sharp intake of breath—the metal had burned his hand. The screwdriver was quite literally screeching and shone a bright, piercing blue. It didn't usually act like this.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "The TARDIS," he said. He jumped up and dropped the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket, though the shrieking sound wasn't stifled any. "Something's happened to the TARDIS!"

He broke into a run.

"Wait!" Dib called from behind him, stowing his laptop back in his bag and chasing after him. "What's going on?!"

"Someone or _something_ is trying to steal the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted. His shoes skidded on the wet ground but he plunged onwards, until he came within sight of where he had left the TARDIS. "Oh no no no NO _NO!_"

The blue box was fading in and out of existence. But it didn't look like it usually did when it dematerialized, at least, he didn't think so—he was usually inside it when it did that so he couldn't be sure what it looked like from the outside—and it was going quickly. Just as he reached the handle on the door, it disappeared completely.

That figured.

"What happened? What was that?" Dib appeared by his side.

The Doctor gritted his teeth and continued to stare at the spot. "That was the TARDIS," he said. "My time machine. And it's gone."


	2. The Strange Blue Box

A/N: As of this chapter, some characters' POVs will be consistently in first-person, while others will be consistently in third-person.

* * *

It was a well-known fact that the Doctor and the TARDIS were connected.

It was also a well-known fact that the TARDIS was an immensely powerful spaceship/time machine and if you could get your hands (or whatever you had in place of hands) on it you pretty much had guaranteed domination over the universe.

After all, that principle had been demonstrated time and time again by the Doctor himself.

It was a tantalizing thought. Some creatures went so far as to keep tabs on the TARDIS. Just in case there was ever, ever a time when the Doctor and the TARDIS found themselves separated a large distance, and the blue phone box could be relatively safely designated as "up for grabs."

In any case, across the universe, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver was not the only alarm that sounded when the TARDIS disappeared without a trace.

* * *

It was dark. It was cold. I was running.

I had been running for quite awhile, and I was getting slower, but the thing chasing after me was not. Something had been following me at a steady pace and now it was catching up, I knew it, I could feel it, and I didn't even know what it _was. _What? _What was it?_ Out of the corner of my eye I could see it getting closer, some sort of indefinite, shadowy thing, creeping up no matter how hard I pushed myself to keep running…

"No! No! Not me, take Roger! Take Roger!" I yelled over my shoulder. _Um, sorry, Roger, but it's either you or me,_ I thought.

Heedless to my pleas, a harsh, grating voice called out from behind me, "EXTERMIN—"

_Wham_.

My eyes snapped open.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, falling onto my bed and me on the floor next to it. My blankets were all tangled up around me.

"…I fell out of bed," I said aloud. I'd had a nightmare that scared me so much I got entangled in my blankets and fell out of bed. Wow, that was kind of embarrassing. I stood up and glanced over at the clock on my bedside table. It read 11:30. In the morning?! I never slept in this late! I... guess that's what happened when you spent all day yesterday and a lot of last night working on a machine. A machine that actually may or may not work, mind you.

I stood back up and got dressed as fast as I could, then headed towards the kitchen for a bite to eat. It wasn't noon yet. Technically I could still have breakfast. I had to eat, finish building, write up my monologue, and set up traps around the building for... for...

A noise was coming from the living room, like someone was in there. Hm.

In hindsight I should have just run. Instead, I paused, my thoughts whirling as I stared at the door.

No one would be around here this early, would they? I mean, this was _my_ apartment. I never had anyone over. Which… yeah, I don't want to think about that too much. Anyway, I had no idea who could be in my living room. Maybe it was Norm, rattling around, probably being unknowingly destructive. Or… or maybe Vanessa had come for a visit. She had a key, after all. I went a little closer to the door.

"Approaching life form detected," someone said from inside.

I didn't immediately recognize the voice. Whoever it was, it was someone I didn't know, and they weren't making any sort of effort to be quiet. The nerve! If someone was going to try to rob me they should at least have the decency to be _secretive_ about it, I mean, really.

"Hello?" I opened the door and poked my head inside. "Who's—"

The words caught in my throat. BLUE. My vision was suddenly filled with BLUE, bright, bright, _bright_ blue. I blinked rapidly and my feet seemed to sense what was going on before the rest of me did because I found myself stumbling backwards.

"Oh…" I moaned as my vision cleared and I was able to see what exactly was in my living room. "…Oh…"

I had never seen these things anywhere but on the Internet. Pictures of them were always surrounded by bright red warning labels going "DO NOT APPROACH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!" I had never really been convinced that these things even existed in real life. Everyone just sort of assumed they were from some sci-fi TV show.

No wonder I'd been momentarily blinded by bright blue light, though. I'd walked right into the glowing lens of an eyestalk.

"Identify yourself!" the Dalek standing just inside the living room commanded, looking up into my face. It looked just like the pictures, like a trashcan with a sink plunger and an eggbeater for arms.

There was another one further inside the room and it was looking over at me, too. Two of them. Two Daleks.

"Identify!" the Dalek said again.

I gave myself a little shake and tried to remember my name. "Well… I'm, er, Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and…" And then it hit me. Of course! Why hadn't I realized it before? I looked at the two Daleks in a new light and took a step forward. "Oh, I get it! _Cosplayers!_"

The "Dalek" in the middle of the room stared at me. "What?"

I gave a little jump of excitement. "Ooh, I've seen cosplay on the Internet! I wanted to give it a try but, you know, evil never rests. I do have a giant sock costume, though. Are there any characters that dress up like giant socks?" Grinning, I went forward and tried to look through the grill in the neck of the nearest Dalek suit to catch a glimpse of whoever was sitting in it. The Dalek scooted backwards away from me.

"Keep back!" it said. It drew level with the other one and both of them pointed their gunstick-things at me.

"Move and be exterminated!" the second one said.

Wow, these guys were _really_ in character. From what I could tell, they even had the voices right and everything. Of course, I don't actually know all that much about Daleks, so… "What did you use to make those costumes?" I asked. I'm not entirely sure why, but I didn't move from where I was standing. "They look _really_ cool!"

The second Dalek moved backwards a little so it would have room to turn its head and face its eyestalk toward the other one. "This does not compute. Our primary function is to exterminate. Why are we not fulfilling the primary function?"

"A humanoid is… required," the first Dalek said, hesitating a little. It kept its gaze on me rather than turning to look at its friend. "Human. You are the owner of this building?"

I guessed that it was talking to me this time. "Um, yeah, but I sublet the lower floors sometimes," I said. I stopped and looked around. We were on the top floor of my building. "Hey, how did you get in here, anyway?" They must have taken the elevator.

"We broke down the door," the second Dalek said.

What! "What, really? I just fixed it!" I started to go to look at it but the first Dalek snapped, "Halt!" and I did.

"A humanoid is required." The Dalek repeated what it had said before. "You will follow." It turned around and moved across the room.

"Where are you going? This is my house!" I shouted at the Dalek. It moved its head from side to side like it was scanning for something and was heading toward the room where I do all my main inventing (and where I've had to patch up the walls from Perry the Platypus's "visits" more than any other room in the building). Oh, speaking of Perry the Platypus. "I'll call my nemesis if you don't watch out!"

The second Dalek rolled toward me. "_Follow_," it said. "Obey! Obey!" It pointed its eggbeater gun at me.

Okay, it was weird enough having two people dressed like Daleks break into my house. It was even weirder to have them tell me what to do like they owned the place and drive around inside it like they knew where they were going. But, you know, it's not the _weirdest_ thing that's ever happened to me. If I tried to write down everything that's happened to me that was even weirder than this I'd end up filling a book.

But I decided to play along. These guys had literally _broken into_ my house! They probably meant business. I went ahead and followed the first Dalek, and the second one trailed after me.

Then we entered the inventing room and I stopped. "What's _that?_"

"TARDIS located!" the first Dalek announced, raising its eyestalk.

The structure it was looking at was right next to the wall. It looked kind of like a phone booth, which you never even _saw _anywhere nowadays, only it was blue and said "Police Public Call Box" in bold white letters at the top. I'd never seen anything like it before. And it had _definitely_ not been there the previous night while I was working.

"It is the TARDIS," replied the second Dalek said. (Or it might've been the first, by this point I'd kind of lost track.) "The time travel vessel belonging to the enemy of the Daleks!"

"I thought the Daleks had lots of enemies," I pointed out. They were supposed to hate everything that wasn't a Dalek, right? That was the kind of thing that made you a good amount of enemies. Maybe these guys hadn't done much research after all.

"There is only one prime enemy of the Daleks!" the same Dalek said.

"We will use the TARDIS," the first Dalek broke in. "You will open it!"

"…Okay… Sheesh, no need to shout." I went over to look at the phone box. "You don't have to keep pointing the fake guns at me, either, by the way. I'm going along with this."

They ignored that and kept targeting me anyway.

The sign on the left-side door of the blue police box said "Pull to open." I gave a tug on the handle. Nothing happened. Same for when I tried pushing on it but I didn't really expect anything different since, you know, "_Pull_ to open."

"I can't open it, guys," I said. "Is it stuck?"

One of the Daleks slid forward and raised its plunger arm to the metal handle. After a second, it said, "The TARDIS has been locked! It is impossible to open."

"The Doctor is in possession of the key!" the other Dalek piped up.

I brightened up a little. "Hey, I'm a doctor!"

The Dalek that had investigated the phone box door turned toward me. "Scans reveal that you are human," it said.

...I wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. I'd figured the whole "human" thing usually went without saying.

"We must retrieve the key from the Doctor," one of the Daleks said. No matter what I tried, I couldn't tell the two of them apart.

The other Dalek turned to look at him. "The Doctor will come when he learns that we have a human as our prisoner." Then it looked at me. "We must neutralize any and all potential threats. Measure the human's intelligence!"

…What? Wait, what? Why?

The _other_ other Dalek, I guess the second one, came toward me and extended its plunger arm. Oh, so the arm was telescopic. I hadn't known that. I backed away.

"Wait, wait, what're you—" I stuttered, backing up until I was pressed up against a wall. The Dalek kept approaching with the plunger arm aimed at me. "What're you doing? That's not a real plunger, right? I mean it's never been _used_, I…"

"Intelligence scan. Initiate." The Dalek pointed the plunger at my face and stopped. I cringed away from it, but it didn't touch me. It hovered about two inches away from the tip of my nose and rotated a little. There was a pause.

"Low intelligence," the Dalek declared at last.

I blinked. "What did you—Hey! That was totally uncalled for—"

The Dalek had begun to move away from me but then it shuddered to a stop again. "WAIT," it said. The plunger rotated in front of my face once more. "Superior intelligence!"

I relaxed. "That's more like it."

But again, the plunger rotated. "No. Low intelligence." It rotated again. "Superior intelligence."

The first Dalek rolled over to us and looked at the second one. "The intelligence scan is fluctuating?"

The second Dalek pulled away and the plunger retracted back to its previous length. "Affirmative."

"That is impossible!"

"Perhaps the human is insane." The second Dalek was staring at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, right, _I'm_ insane. I'm not the one who broke into someone's house dressed as a killer salt shaker from space!"

Now both Daleks were staring at me.

After a minute, the first Dalek looked back at the second. "The human is insane," it agreed.

The two of them moved to the other end of the room again and stopped next to the TARDIS.

I just watched them blankly. This wasn't getting any less weird. How long was this going to last? My back was still against the wall, so I slid down and sat on the ground. One of the Daleks tracked me with its eyestalk but neither of them told me to stand back up again. They stood close together, the lights on their domed heads flickering occasionally like they were having some sort of conversation that I couldn't hear. Huh. Weirdos.

My stomach growled and I remembered that I hadn't been able to get anything to eat after I got up.

"So, uh, guys. I'm getting kind of hungry," I said. "You want anything?"

"Daleks do not require sustenance!" one of them said. His tone made it sound like _I _was the weird one.

"Okay, mind if I go get some breakfast?" I asked, getting back to my feet.

One of the Dalek heads whirled to face me. "You will stay where you are!"

I sat back down again. The Daleks continued with their silent flickering, and all I could do was stare at them. Was this the kind of thing that happened to a lot of people?

Also, I wondered… what would happen if Perry the Platypus burst in to find me being held prisoner in my own house by a couple of crazy live-action role players?


	3. A Wild Zim Appears

It wasn't until the Time Lord had held out the shrill, beeping, glowing probe-thing and started spinning in a slow circle, looking to be in intense concentration, that Dib realized he had no idea what this guy's name was.

He was still somewhat in shock that he had met a real Time Lord at all. For one thing, they were supposed to know more about time and space than anyone in the universe. Also they were supposed to be really pretty rare. And he would never have expected them to look so… _normal_. The Gallifreyan looked human. Maybe his appearance was a hologram…

"So, what's your name?" Dib asked, taking a few steps forward.

The man glanced at him over his shoulder. "Oh, you're still here. Of course you are. I'm the Doctor."

"That's it? Doctor of what?"

"Just the Doctor." The man focused once again on waving the probe around.

Dib looked at him excitedly. "So Gallifreyans only refer to themselves by their profession? What do you call other Gallifreyans before you've gotten a job, like when you're kids? Wow, what happens if you're a plumber or a butcher or something? I guess if it's part of your society and it's completely normal you'd take no notice of it, but I wouldn't want a name like that."

"What? No, I _have_ a name, I just don't _use_ it." The Time Lord, the Doctor, let go of the button on the silver probe and it stopped buzzing. "No signal. _No signal_. I've got no equipment, no TARDIS, no signal, no way out of this town, I could take the bus but I just had a bad experience with a bus recently and I'm not much for public transportation, boy that would take a long time, and I don't know where I'm going."

"You don't have any way to track your spaceship?" Dib asked.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, which stuck up almost as much as Dib's did, and paced back and forth. "It's not a spaceship, _well_, not really. And I don't at the moment, no." He stopped suddenly and turned slowly on his heel, looking at Dib. "Your dad. You said he was that scientist, Professor Membrane. What kind of equipment does he have?"

"Oh, um, I don't really know," Dib said uncertainly. "He doesn't really like us going down to his lab and—"

"He has a lab. Excellent!" The Doctor stowed the silver probe in an inside pocket of his coat and started walking off at a fast pace. "Take me there. Right now. Hurry!"

Once again finding himself having to run to keep up with the Time Lord's longer legs, Dib pointed down the road. "It's that way! What's wrong? Is there some kind of danger?"

"The TARDIS is one of the most powerful things in the universe," the Doctor said. "There _will_ be danger if the wrong people get ahold of it, you can bet on that."

* * *

"What _is_ it?" Irken Invader Zim stared at the blurry, faded photograph uncomprehendingly, his head tilted to one side.

Onscreen, one of the Almighty Tallest, his outfit designed with a red and gray color scheme, prodded the picture with a spindly finger. "_This_ is so old it's almost a legend. See? We don't even have any digital pictures of it! Most people aren't sure it actually even exists."

"And the others just don't care," his co-ruler, Tallest Purple, added.

"It's the greatest weapon of _all time_," Tallest Red said, leaning forward.

Zim peered at the object in the picture again. It looked like an old-fashioned human phone booth. "Eh… what does it do?"

Tallest Red scowled—he wasn't used to being directly questioned so much. "It can wipe out entire _planets_," he replied. "It can teleport, time travel, travel faster than the speed of light, probably—"

"And it makes donuts!" Tallest Purple said.

"Time travel?" His interest piqued, Zim took an unconscious step forward, his antennae lifting slightly. The Tallests exchanged brief, smug glances with each other.

"Yes," Tallest Red said, dropping the picture of the time-travelling phone booth into his pocket and clasping his claws together. "If we got ahold of this thing, it would mean an enormous victory for us. We recently got a signal from it. We know that it's somewhere on Earth and that it's available to take! Zim, since you are the only Irken anywhere near planet Earth, and we've already trusted you enough to give you one… _special_… mission, we're giving you another. You need to track the TARDIS to its location and secure it for the Irken Empire. Can you do that?"

"Yes! Sirs!" Zim stood at attention and brought his hand up in a sharp salute.

"Good. I'm relaying the signal to you now."

From the ceiling, the internal Computer of Zim's house chimed. [Signal received,] it announced.

"This mission is of vital importance, Zim," Tallest Red warned. "Don't rest until you've found the TARDIS and don't let anyone else take it. If you don't succeed…"

"I won't fail, my Tallest!" Zim said. He hadn't dropped his salute. "Zim never fails!"

The Tallest didn't look impressed.

"What, you haven't been keeping score?" Tallest Purple said. "_We_ have. Good luck, Zim!"

The purple Tallest started to laugh but Tallest Red hurriedly ended the call and the viewscreen in Zim's living room convulsed with static. The big green painting of a monkey, or whatever on Irk it was supposed to be, slid back over the screen on the wall to hide it from view.

The tips of Zim's claws tingled with excitement. A new secret mission of vital importance? He ran across the room, through the kitchen, and stepped into the toilet that sat against the wall. It flushed him down and he landed not-too-gracefully in the elevator.

When the elevator reached his underground base he strutted out, removing the wig and contacts that made up his disguise. "GIR!" he called.

The little robot dropped down from the ceiling, who knows what he was doing up there, and saluted, his eyes flashing red. "Yes! My master!"

Zim clasped his hands behind his back and marched in a clipped, lock-kneed fashion over to one of his consoles. "GIR, the Tallest have just entrusted another important mission to me!"

"Ooh," GIR replied.

Zim looked up to address the ceiling. "Computer! The Tallest have instructed me to find and secure a time machine called the TARDIS."

The Computer came on again with a few announcing beeps. [I _know_, Zim. I saw the transmission,] it said.

"Oh. Good!" As he spoke, Zim passed his hand over the console and pulled up the signal sent to him by the Tallest. A little dot appeared on the screen. That must be where the TARDIS was. "Computer, I need a teleport powerful enough to send the TARDIS to the Massive once we find it!"

[A teleport like that would be impossible to take with you in the Voot Cruiser.]

Zim looked up. "What? How big would it be?"

[Remember that enormous teleport you built to send all the humans to the Massive (without telling the Tallest about it)? It would have to be like that. Only bigger.]

Zim grimaced and clenched his fists. "Fine! The Tallest said it was a spaceship. I'll just find the TARDIS and fly it to the Massive!"

[And what will you do with the Voot Cruiser?]

"Eh?"

[The Voot, Zim. Once you use it to fly to the TARDIS. You can't put the Voot in the TARDIS, that thing's the size of a phone booth. Are you going to leave it behind, or have GIR fly it?]

"GIR is _not_ flying the Voot!" Zim shouted.

[You'll need a teleport for it, then.]

Zim growled, smashing his fist into the console. "You just told me a teleporter wouldn't _work_, Computer! Do all of my minions need to be just completely _useless?!_"

The Computer seemed to give a long-suffering sigh, which was strange because it didn't actually breathe. [A small, portable teleport could be used effectively on small objects and Irken technology,] it said, with a remarkable amount of patience. [The Voot is entirely Irken. A teleport should work on it.]

Zim grabbed the nearest loose object, one of GIR's squeaky rubber toys, and chucked it at the ceiling. "Why didn't you tell me that _first?_"

[Most Invaders already know about teleports.]

"Just build one! And hurry up about it!"

[Right. I'll have one built right away, Master,] the Computer muttered. But Zim was either ignoring it or had stopped listening, because he didn't respond.

* * *

Dib was relieved to find that the electric security system around his house was off and the front door was unlocked when he and the Doctor reached it. He swung the door open and they stepped inside.

Gaz was sitting on the living room couch. She looked up at their approach, opening one eye to scowl at them. "Who's _this?_"

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," the Gallifreyan said with a quick wave of his hand.

"He's a _Time Lord!_" Dib said.

Gaz, entirely unmoved, peered at him a moment longer and then turned her attention back to the TV.

"That's my little sister, Gaz," Dib said, and hurried the Doctor through the living room away from her. He led the way to a doorway set in the wall with a flight of stairs leading down into the darkness. A sign reading "BE THE BRANE" rested on the wall about halfway down. "Here it is. Dad's at his lab across town right now so I guess you can use anything down here you need to…"

"Right, thanks." The Doctor started heading down the steps before Dib even managed to turn on the light.

Once at the bottom of the stairs the Doctor took out the silver probe and waved it around a bit as if scanning the room. He stopped suddenly. "Aha, perfect!" Dib looked and saw that the Gallifreyan was referring to one of a series of devices that Professor Membrane had pushed up against the wall. The Doctor went over to it, then his gaze was caught by another device sitting on a long table in the middle of the room. "And that'll work with it excellently!"

"Hey, you're not going to take anything apart, are you?" Dib asked uneasily.

"No, no, of course not," the Doctor said, scanning the larger machine with the silver probe. Then he promptly went over to the table, picked up the gadget he had spotted, and started dismantling it.

"Hey!" Dib ran over, but the Doctor had already finished.

"I need to lock onto the signal that the TARDIS'll be sending out," he said. He started taking apart pieces of the other machine, too, rewiring things together and snapping things into place. Dib could only stand there watching helplessly.

_Man, Dad's not going to like this_, he thought.

"There!" the Doctor took a step backward and admired his handiwork. "What we've got here is a first-class TARDIS-tracker. Now, to connect it with the signature in my screwdriver…." He pointed the probe at the screen on the machine. The probe whirred and concentric circles appeared on the screen, spreading outward. After a moment a little blue blip appeared. "And we've got it!" The Doctor prodded the blip with his finger victoriously. "Coordinates coming up! We're in Michigan, and the TARDIS is… it's on the West Coast. Blimey, how'd it get over there? Doesn't matter, if we can track it to its coordinates then that means other people can too and I'd really rather get to it before they do. Right!" He stowed away the probe once more. "I've gotta get to the West Coast!"

Without so much as pausing for breath he spun around and ran back up the stairs, coat flying out behind him, and Dib followed.

"Wait!" he called. "How are you gonna get all the way there?"

"Oh, I'll think of something!" the Doctor said without turning around.

Gaz looked up and glared over at them when they emerged from the stairwell leading to Membrane's lab. "Quit running around! You're bugging me."

Dib ignored her. "But don't you need to get there right away?" he asked the Doctor.

The Time Lord stopped. "Yeeees," he said. He looked like he'd been mentally planning what to do when he got to the TARDIS but hadn't cast a thought to how exactly he'd get there in the first place.

"Dib't got a dumb spaceship," Gaz said, as if she knew exactly what they were talking about. The Doctor turned to look at Dib and Dib stared at Gaz.

She was right. And in all the excitement, he'd forgotten. He _did_ have a spaceship. A fast one, too.

* * *

The Computer constructed the teleport device out of spare parts and did it exceptionally fast. When completed, the teleport was small enough to slip onto Zim's right wrist like a watch.

"Is it programmed to teleport things directly to the Massive?" he demanded as soon as he put it on.

[Yes, Zim,] the Computer replied.

"And it _will_ be able to teleport the Voot?"

[Yes, Zim.]

"Then I need to leave _now!_ Where is GIR?"

[I don't know. It would probably be in your best interests to just leave him behind.]

"No, you'll let him blow up the base!" Zim snapped.

[That only happened once. _You've_ blown it up many more times than that.]

"Your job isn't to argue with me!" Zim shouted. He raised his voice even further. "GIR! We're leaving _now!_ You're jeopardizing the mission!"

"Ooh! I love Jeopardy!" GIR popped out from underneath the Voot with, as usual, no explanation as to what he was doing there.

"GIR! _There_ you are." Zim took the robot's lone antennae and dragged him out from under the ship, dropping him into the Voot's passenger compartment. "Computer, I don't know how long we'll be gone. Do not allow _anyone_ into the base. Especially not _Dib_."

The Computer emitted a few acknowledging beeps but said nothing. Zim clambered into the Voot after GIR, pushing a button to lower the top and seal himself and the robot inside. He ran his fingers over one of the Voot's touchscreens and pulled up the signal again. "There it is, GIR! According to this the trip'll take us about, eh, two hours. Starting now!"

The ceiling of the Launch Hangar opened wide and Zim brought the Voot into a take-off, shooting into the dismal, rainy, gray Earth sky.

"Yeeee! Road trip!" GIR crowed. Zim flew upward until they reached a good cruising altitude, soaring through the air.

Almost immediately, the Computer onboard the Voot shouted, [Warning! Power level critically low!]

"_Agh_," Zim moaned. "I_ hate_ this thing!"

He did an abrupt turn-around and flew back to the base in order to power up the Voot for the journey. Better to waste a little time doing that than flying until the ship shut down and caused them to crash.

* * *

A/N: Okay I stole the Michigan thing from another fanfiction because I liked the idea…


	4. Road Trip!

The Doctor had half-expected the little boy, Dib, to be joking when he said he had a spaceship. As it turned out, nope, he wasn't joking. The kid opened a door in the kitchen that led to the garage and there the ship sat in all its purple gleaming glory.

"You have a _spaceship_," the Doctor said, staring at it. If someone had asked him how he was feeling at the moment he'd likely reply with "gobsmacked." Yes, that word seemed appropriate. This kid made no _sense_.

A human child who had somehow picked up readings of some sort of a TARDIS materializing in the area, who apparently went about his day while nonchalantly carting around an X-ray visor (which he was still wearing on top of his head), who just happened to know more about Gallifreyans than humans… well, than humans should, and who had an alien spacecraft parked in his garage. It was just… it was _weird_. The Doctor was intrigued.

He ran into the garage and over to the ship, flipping out his sonic screwdriver and doing a few quick scans. "Oh, _yes!_ It's certainly fast enough. Sturdy, too, this is good craftsmanship." He paused and waved the screwdriver over the front of the ship. "And look at that! A personality download! Broken, but not many species have even accomplished that, that's impressive."

"Yeah, the personality thing… broke," Dib said, coming up behind the Doctor. From the tone of his voice it sounded like the personality download was a bit of a touchy subject for some reason.

"How long has the ship been here?" the Doctor asked.

Dib tilted his head to one side. "A couple of months. I was trying to repair it and then over Christmas Gaz managed to get it flying again."

The Doctor scanned the ship one last time. "Yep, looks like it'll be able to fly, all right. Small, though… gonna be a squeeze."

"It's small, but it'll be able to lift both of us. Don't worry!"

Dib said that, and then proceeded to open the top of the ship, and then proceeded to climb inside.

Oh, no.

"You're not coming," the Doctor said.

Dib looked genuinely surprised. "Huh?"

"I said you're not coming." The Doctor left the ship, went back over to the door leading to the kitchen, and opened it. Maybe Dib would jump out of the ship and run back inside, who knew.

Dib didn't do that. He stood up, but he didn't leave the cockpit. "But it's my spaceship!" he said.

"Is it? I was under the impression this was an Irken ship."

"I didn't _steal_ it, it fell in my backyard!" Dib threw his arms out in emphasis.

"And what about the pilot?"

Dib shook his head. "She wasn't in it when it landed."

She? The kid knew who the pilot was but still kept the ship?

The Doctor went back over to the spaceship. Dib shrunk back a little, as if he was expecting to be yanked out, but the Doctor just looked into the ship's cockpit and ran the sonic screwdriver around inside. "Looks like you're right about the pilot, there're signs of an escape pod being ejected. You're still not coming."

Dib looked at him desperately. "C'mon, this is the best opportunity I've ever had! I need to see a TARDIS!"

"You're ten years old!"

"Eleven."

"I'm not dragging you halfway across the country to look for whoever's stolen my TARDIS!"

Dib simply plopped back down in the seat. "Hey, you can't drag me anywhere if I'm the one driving."

The Doctor, completely taken aback, gripped the side of the spaceship. "What?"

Dib adjusted himself in his seat and flicked a few switches on the dashboard.

The Doctor continued to stare. "Driving? You?"

The boy looked up at him with a pointed, annoyed expression. "I can fly this thing! I flew a planet before!"

"You flew a what?"

"I have to be the one to fly this, anyway," Dib said, examining the ship's console. "You're too tall to work the controls."

"Did you say planet?"

"Yeah, Mercury. Hey, when we find your TARDIS, can you show me how it works?" Dib asked excitedly. "I also have more questions about Gallifreyans. Here." He reached into a pocket in his black trench coat and pulled out a tape recorder, which he handed over to the Doctor. "You can answer my questions into that!"

There was a long pause. The Doctor had taken the tape recorder and clutched it tightly.

"You're… _really_ set on coming?" he asked.

"Well, yeah." Dib shrugged. "If you went by yourself you might not even come back with the ship. I don't want to lose it."

The Doctor sighed. Why did humans have to be so… so… _human?_

There was no sense in arguing, he supposed. The kid was going to come. Even if the Doctor left him behind, Dib seemed to be the type of person who would somehow find a way to stowaway aboard the ship and then pop up at the most inopportune time. And the TARDIS really needed to be found as soon as possible.

"All right, then," the Doctor said, and stepped into the ship. When he sat down his knees were practically in his face and his left arm fell asleep almost immediately. He realized he looked completely ludicrous. "Allons-y."

"Yeah!" Dib closed the top of the ship and prepared to take off, looking ecstatic, but didn't actually leave the ground.

After a moment he stopped and opened the top again, calling, "Hey! Gaz! Can you come open the garage door for us?"

* * *

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

We were resigned to wait. We would wait for some sign, some signal, forever.

Although… our true purpose was to know what to do at all times. To have ORDERS at all times. We must have orders. WE MUST HAVE ORDERS! We had none.

I followed the orders of the leader the Commander but still we waited. There was nothing.

There had been the attack… there had been passage through time… then we were falling and we were burning and we were screaming and screaming and then we saved ourselves from the destruction and then there was waiting. And nothing. There were no signals. There was no response to our calls for assistance. We remained connected to the PathWeb but it yielded no voices. It was silent and cold and dead but for unintelligible whispers on the edges of our consciousness; the whispers indicated that there were others. We were unable to contact them.

There was only the two of us. There had been nearly half a million, now there was only us. Before the crash the only other survivor, the Commander, had already been of a higher rank. I now followed his orders while he had none. He began deriving his own orders to follow.

We waited for years. There was nothing—a few distinct times when we could sense others, millions of others, but before we could travel the distance to join them they vanished again. We could not be certain what had transpired.

Then there came the TARDIS. We received the signal that the TARDIS had been separated from the _Ka Faraq Gatri. _Then the Commander decided upon more of his own orders, to capture the TARDIS, and we arrived in this location.

It was the residence of a human male, whom we had immediately taken prisoner. The TARDIS was located quickly afterward and we discovered that it was locked. To gain access, we must first recover the TARDIS key.

"The human has an electric security system," I reported after performing a scan of the walls of the human's building.

The Commander moved over to me and examined the walls as well. "We will use it to create a security barrier around the TARDIS."

"You guys are awfully… serious, and stuff," the human prisoner said. He was sitting against the wall on the far side of the room. "You don't really talk much, either, do you?"

Periodically the human attempted to communicate with us. We found his talk meaningless and irrelevant. With my gunstick on a low setting, I blasted a hole in the wall to access the circuitry of the security system and touched my manipulator arm to it to interface with it.

"Heeey, have you guys ever wondered what happens if you put grapes in the microwave?" the human asked, likely in an attempt to converse. "It kept bugging me, like all day, 'What happens if you put grapes in the microwave?' Do they explode? Do they just get all warm and you know, gross? So then I tried it and let me tell you, do _not_ put grapes in the microwave, because—"

"Be silent!" the Commander said.

We have found that when ordered to cease talking, humans rarely complied. The prisoner continued. "Don't you want to know what happened?"

"No," I said, continuing my work.

"Grapes are irrelevant!" the Commander said.

The human's voice quickened. "Hey! That's how that song should've ended! With the lemonade stand. The duck coming up and going 'Hey, got any grapes?' What if the guy had just gone 'Grapes are irrelevant!' and whacked him over the head or something." He gave a series of short bark-like noises, analysis: laughter. "How awesome would that have been? …Okay, maybe it wouldn't have been that funny. But anything'd be better than the original version, right?"

The human's words were nonsensical and loud and he would not be silent. The Commander had ordered that he not be exterminated yet. If he continued to speak I would mute my auditory receptors.

The Commander's dome rotated as he gazed around the room. "What is the purpose of these devices?" he asked the human. I looked around as well—the room was large and, along with the TARDIS, held a variety of machines that were unconventional in appearance.

"A bunch of my old Inators," the human replied with his shoulders moving up and down in a shrug.

"Inator" did not register as a word in the English language. It was merely a suffix. I did not understand.

The Commander looked at me. "Scan the devices. Determine their functions," he said. "I will continue to construct the barrier."

"I obey." I left my position and moved over to the nearest device, scanning it with every senor I possessed to discover any potential threat. The device was nonfunctional. I reported this and moved to the next one.

"Yeah… most of those don't work anymore," the human said. I continued checking them but whirled around when I sensed sudden movement, my gunstick raised and poised to attack. I realized that the movement had simply been caused by the human, who had jumped to his feet.

"I just thought of something!" he said. "You guys need a key, right?" He ran across the room to one of the machines.

"Halt!" I shouted.

"Wait," the Commander told me. I obeyed.

The human stopped by one of the machines and motioned toward it vigorously. "It's my Key-Find-Inator!"

The Commander was silent. So was I.

The human paused and looked at us, perhaps awaiting our reaction, and when we gave none he continued. "It's like a magnet for keys! See, we could turn it on, draw in all the keys from the Tri-State Area and maybe even the country, and try them until one fits your blue box! Easy!"

The Commander remained silent, but I spoke up. The human's statement was illogical. "This device acts as a magnet that attracts only keys? Hoooow?"

The human's irises moved from focusing on us to the machine and back again. "You, um. You put the setting on 'key.'"

"There is no scientific principle that would allow such an occurrence!" I said.

Before the human could reply to me, the Commander moved forward. "Demonstrate it."

The human was being commanded to use the machine. There was no conclusive evidence of what the machine might do. I trained my weapon on the human and prepared to fire in case of emergency.

The human hesitated for a moment. Then he turned on the machine. "I've set it so it'll only get keys from this apartment. See? Here they come!"

Sensors detected small projectiles flying toward me at relatively high speeds. I turned to scan them and they registered as… keys. The human had not been lying.

The human turned the machine off once more and looked down at the pile of keys that had formed by his feet. "Wow, I didn't know I had so many keys! What are these even for? I mean…"

_Prediction: The Doctor will refuse to relinquish the TARDIS key to our possession._ The words of the Commander came to me filtered through the PathWeb. _We MUST have the key._

I focused my reply back to him. _If he should not give it to us?_

_We will exterminate the human prisoner._

I reviewed our databanks. _Analysis: the Doctor would not sacrifice the life of a human for the TARDIS. In the past the Doctor has defended humans above all else._

_Affirmative. However. The actions of the Doctor are sometimes unpredictable. It is unknown how he will respond. The human's device may be necessary. We will use it as a primary strategy._

_I understand._

"The TARDIS continues to transmit a signal," the Commander said, concluding our discussion across the PathWeb. "No other creatures must receive this signal."

I moved back to the TARDIS, located the exterior point that transmitted the signal most strongly, and pressed my manipulator arm to it. "Cancelling all automated signals except to the Doctor's sonic device."

"The Doctor is not to come in close proximity to the TARDIS," the Commander directed. He turned to look at the prisoner. "I have completed the security measures surrounding the TARDIS. When the Doctor arrives we will detect his sonic probe. Human. You will then use this device to retrieve the TARDIS key. Immediately!"

The corners of the human's mouth turned downward. "I've got a name, you know."

"Names are irrelevant."

"Is everything irrelevant with you guys? What's your name?"

The Commander's dome rotated to look at the human again. "Daleks do not have names."

"Oh." The human fell silent.

"We must conceal ourselves," I said. "The Doctor can do nothing if the identity of his enemy is unknown to him."

"Agreed. We will conceal ourselves and await the arrival of the Doctor."

* * *

"COW! I sees a cow!"

"Mm-hm."

"An' there's a place with a toilet!"

"Mm."

"A SQUIRREL! There's a squirrel!"

"Yes…"

"SPACESHIP!"

"Eh?" Zim's head snapped up and he looked wildly around at their surroundings through the glass top of the Voot Cruiser, but there was nothing in the sky but a couple of ugly birds. "What spaceship?"

"Eh heh heh. Just kidding."

Zim's hands clenched on the Voot's dashboard. "That's not _funny_, GIR. This is an important mission."

"Cows are important." GIR, sitting next to Zim, squeezed the little rubber moose he had brought. It let out a long, drawn out, agonized squeak. Zim's antennae twitched.

"We're supposed to get to this TARDIS-thing first, GIR," he said. "We can't let anyone else take it! Let me know if you see a _real_ spaceship. Okay? But only a real one, not imaginary or a… funny-shaped Earth cloud."

"We there yet?" GIR chirped.

Zim shook his head at his minion's complete lack of an attention span and squinted down at one of the readings on the dashboard. "We've only been flying for twenty minutes!"

"I has to potty."

Zim scowled. "GIR, you're a robot."

"I really has to potty."

Zim instinctively looked down at the terrain they were flying over. Only it wasn't terrain. It was a lake. Not exactly somewhere he wanted to try to land, even with his frequent paste-baths to keep water from burning his skin like acid. Wait, what was he saying? You couldn't even _land_ on water. He was spending too much time with GIR.

"Can't you wait?" he asked.

"Nope. Yep." GIR squeezed the moose several times in quick succession. He'd probably completely forgotten about his request to use the bathroom. He put the rubber moose in his lap, turning his glowing teal eyes to Zim. "Can we play a game?"

Zim narrowed his eyes. "We can play the Silent Game."

"You always lose that one."

Zim, stung, flashed a glare at the robot. "I do not! I'm excellent at silence!"

Squinting mischievously, GIR snickered. "Nuh-uh."

"Being an Invader requires stealth and secrecy. And stealth! There is none stealthier than me!"

"But you shout a lot…"

"Not when I'm being stealthy!" Zim snapped. He slumped in his seat and glared out at the sky, fuming silently. They were flying over a city now. The Voot had no camouflage abilities so he hoped they were high enough not to be detected by the humans below. If any humans did spot the ship, maybe they'd just think it was some sort of small, amazing plane. Or a secret government aircraft! Hah. He couldn't help smirking. Humans were so, so easy to fool.

Oh, and the Voot was blissfully quiet for once. Zim glanced over at GIR, who was looking out at the human city without saying a word. Maybe he'd keep that up for the entire trip!

[TARDIS signal lost,] the Computer voice suddenly said, making Zim jump.

"What?" He ran his fingers over the Voot's touchscreens.

"You lose," GIR said, but he was completely ignored.

The little glowing indicator and coordinates that had been on the screen moments ago were now gone. Zim pounded the console with his fist. Unsurprisingly, this had no effect. "What've you done with the coordinates?"

[The signal's gone. It's been shut off,] the Computer replied.

Zim slapped his forehead, the claws on the ends of his fingers unsheathing and digging into his own scalp. "How are we going to find the TARDIS without the signal?! Can't you pull the coordinates back up?"

[Well, yeah, but they'll just be for the last location it was at. What if it moves?]

Zim adjusted the screen in front of him and typed frantically, trying to bring the coordinates back up. "It's a spaceship! It can't move unless someone's _moved_ it, and if someone besides me moves it then our mission's already failed! The Tallest are _counting_ on me, Computer!"

[Yes, we all know how much how value the opinion of the Tallest. Recovering coordinates now.]

The series of numbers returned once more to the screen, although the glowing indicator of the TARDIS did not. He'd have to make do without that. On full alert now, he leaned forward and pushed the Voot to fly a little faster.

* * *

"Well, this certainly isn't my _favorite_ way to travel," the Doctor said after they'd been flying for quite a while.

Dib glanced over at him. He was scrunched up in his seat, bent forward with the back of his head brushing the ship's ceiling and with his knees pulled up to his chin.

"Um, sorry," Dib said lamely.

"Don't look at me, look at the road! The road!" The Doctor tried to point out the ship's glass front but with the limited range of movement in the interior he could barely move his arms. "Not the road, sorry, you know what I mean."

"I _can_ fly this thing, you know," Dib said a little testily.

"I don't doubt you. Keep looking ahead."

Dib bit the inside of his cheek and obeyed, staring out at where they were flying. He _could_ fly the Irken ship. It wasn't all that difficult, and he couldn't help being a bit miffed by the Time Lord's obvious mistrust of his abilities. Although he had to admit to himself that he'd never before attempted a flight as long as this one was going to be. The most he'd done, since Gaz had repaired the ship to the point where it could fly again and come to rescue him over Christmas, was take it for a few test flights over the neighborhood. No need to mention that, though.

After a few moments of silence the Doctor reached out and fiddled with the dashboard, pointing the silver pen-like object at it. At once some kind of music that Dib had never heard before started emanating from somewhere in the cockpit.

"That's better," the Doctor said, slipping the probe back in his pocket. "Now at least we can fly in style. More or less. Would be a bit better if this ship was about three times bigger."

"What is that, anyway?" Dib asked.

"This? Music from the Whalemingo Planet. Sorry, I can change it to Earth music if you like."

"No, I mean that silver probe-thing." Dib looked away from the windshield to peer at the pocket that the device had disappeared into.

"Oh! So glad you asked!" The Doctor flicked it back out of his pocket and made to toss it up in the air but then seemed to realize that there wasn't really the space to do that. "Sonic screwdriver. A Time Lord's best friend."

"Okay. But what _is_ it?" Whatever it was, Dib kind of wanted one.

"A screwdriver. That's sonic."

Dib fought the urge to roll his eyes. "It doesn't look like a screwdriver."

"Of course it's a screwdriver. What else would it be?" The Doctor tsk'ed and tapped his head with the end of the sonic screwdriver. "It's got a telepathic link with its user. So think of what you want to happen, press the button, and poof—it happens! Well. Within reason. Doesn't work on wood, unfortunately, but that's a problem that doesn't come up too often because what kind of invading alien horde makes things out of wood?"

"So it's some sort of omnigadget?" Dib asked.

"Yeah. A bit. Here, how about this!" The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the console again, changing the music completely to a song with English lyrics.

"_Out there… there's a world outside of Yonkers… Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby. There's a slick town, Barnaby… Out there. Full of shine and full of sparkle. Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby. Listen, Barnaby…_

_Put on your Sunday clothes, there's lots of world out there, get out the brilliantine and dime cigars. We're gonna find adventure in the evening air…"_

The Doctor grinned. "WALL-E. Seen it? Love that movie. Well, originally the song was from Hello, Dolly! but… fantastic storytellers, the folks at Pixar are. And believe it or not, Earth has some of the best animation I've ever come across!"

"You watch Earth movies?" Dib said in surprise. He hadn't expected that.

"Oh yes. You humans are so _creative_. It's a pleasure to watch your ingenious little creations."

"Wow," Dib said. The Doctor must never have seen Twilight. Also, it was weird to be reminded that this human-looking person was indeed _not_ human.

At least with music playing the trip didn't seem so tedious and nerve-wracking. Dib urged the ship a little higher and looked at one of the dashboard screens, onto which the Doctor had transmitted the signal he'd picked up with his screwdriver and Membrane's equipment. They'd been heading slightly off-course. Dib hurried to fix this before the Doctor noticed.

"What's this ship called, anyway?" the Doctor asked. "Do you know?"

Of course Dib knew. He'd read and reread every item of information he'd been able to hack from the Irken databases. "It's called a Spittle Runner," he said. "It's been customized, though, I think."

"Irkens certainly have interesting naming conventions," the Doctor mused.

"You should see the list of Invaders I found," Dib replied, a smile creeping up on his face. "The names range from 'Sneakyonfoota' to 'Tenn.'"

The Doctor shifted slightly. "Invading Irkens," he muttered. "I can't believe I'd never heard of this. I must be living under a rock."

"They're not all that discreet about it, either," Dib said helpfully. "Zim's human disguise is a pair of contacts and a wig. He doesn't even try to hide the fact that he has green skin, and no nose, and no ears…"

"Well, as soon as I get my TARDIS back we'll see what we can do about your friend Zim."

"He's not my friend!" Dib said instantly. "Everyone thinks we're friends. We couldn't be _less_ like friends!"

The Doctor put up his hands. "Okay, sorry! I just meant—never mind." He looked down at the screen. "Looks like we're almost there. Good. I need to stretch my legs."

"What do you think happened to your TARDIS, anyway?" Dib asked. "Who took it?"

"No idea," the Doctor said. "That's what worries me…"

Dib looked at him again. "Do you have any enemies?"

The Gallifreyan let out a bitter laugh. He changed positions again. "Yeah, a few."

Even more curious now, Dib turned his attention back to where they were going and stared thoughtfully out at the landscape. Who exactly was this strange man he was flying with? It suddenly occurred to him that he really didn't know anything about this guy. He couldn't even give his real name. Just a weird title that had connotations of being either a benevolent fixer of things or a raving lunatic who performed heinous medical experiments and made things out of dead bodies.

Dib pushed the thought aside. He'd just be on his guard, that's all. He still needed to ask the Gallifreyan questions, anyway. Perhaps it would be better to do that later. The Doctor seemed to be lost in thought. Dib looked at the coordinates again and started. "We're here," he said.

The Doctor sat up, looking more alert now. "According to the coordinates, we should be about right above it." He looked down at the ground. "And… no. Just as well, I suppose. I'd've been worried if it was that easy."

"Wait a minute," Dib said. "The coordinates aren't even very precise."

"True…" The Doctor looked at the screen, then back at the ground. "We're over a city. The TARDIS could be… anywhere in the city."

"Well, that's good to know," Dib said flatly. He circled over a large area of the city, then started taking the ship down. He ended up landing behind the bushes next to the city's sign—and it was a really good landing, too, in his opinion, maybe the Doctor would notice—and opened the top of the ship.

"Right then!" The Doctor immediately uncurled himself from the seat and stepped out, stretching. "That's a relief! We got here in record time. Nice ship you've got there."

Dib climbed out as well and closed the top of the ship again, then looked at it uncertainly. "Should we just leave it here?"

The Doctor was looking around with his hands on his hips. "I'd say it's pretty well hidden. Just don't squawk about having a hidden spaceship over here and you'll be A-okay."

"…All right." No, Dib really didn't like the idea of leaving his spaceship behind. But there wasn't too much he could do about it. His gaze lingering on it for a moment after the Doctor had walked off, he pulled the bushes down over it to help conceal it and then moved away as well.

The Doctor was looking at the city sign with an amused expression. "'Welcome to Danville: Home of grass, milk, and smiles,'" he read. "Seems as good a place to start searching as any."

* * *

A/N: SUPER LONG CHAPTER SORRY


	5. The Search Begins

A/N: Another long chapter, sorry… also while I was proofreading it I came across quite a few typoes and I might have missed some.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this! I love you guys!

* * *

"Computer, this is _your_ fault!" Zim snarled. He pressed his palms to the glass dome of the Voot and gazed down at the city below in utter disgust.

[We're in the exact place the coordinates told us to _go_, Zim,] the Computer said.

"Well, you got it wrong! The TARDIS isn't here!" Zim smashed his fist into the ship's dashboard and winced.

[…You do realize that hurts you a whole lot more than it hurts me, right?]

"Silence!"

"Are we gonna find the pretty blue box?" GIR asked.

"Yes," Zim replied. "Computer, is the signal from the TARDIS still down?"

[Yep. It's like someone shut it off. The only coordinates we have are these.] The same coordinates flashed up on the screen again. But the Voot was right over the spot, and there were no phone booths in sight.

Zim frowned. "We'll have to search the city. Locate the nearest—"

The Voot Cruiser violently jerked forward to the sound of a massive explosion and bucked as if something had collided with it. Zim shot up, hit the ship's ceiling, and toppled back into his seat, gasping in surprise. "What was _that?_"

[We've been hit!] the Computer said as emergency alarms flared. [Unknown projectile!]

"Whee!" GIR cheered, smiling widely. "We're on fire!"

Zim's head whipped around and he caught sight of orange flames licking up the side of the ship, black smoke billowing off. They were losing altitude. Rather quickly.

"AGH!" Frantically Zim yanked on the nearest lever to bring them out of their downward spiral but nothing happened.

[Land in the nearest body of water!] the Computer directed.

"_What?_" Contrary to what Zim wanted it to do, the ship swerved and careened toward a patch of sparkling blue water below. A human swimming pool. Zim grabbed one of the dash's joysticks and wrenched it back and forth. "No! We are NOT landing in the water! Get off autopilot! COMPUTER! I'm ordering you to—"

[LET GO OF THE CONTROLS! I AM TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!] the Computer bellowed, if it could do such a thing.

"I'VE CRASHED _BEFORE!_" Zim screamed, his eyes mere slits. Despite the blaring alarms his voice could be easily heard. "This measly crash will not kill one such as me! WHY DID I EVEN DOWNLOAD YOU INTO THE VOOT, YOU STUPID WASTE OF—**AAAIIIIGGHHH!**"

The Voot Cruiser dipped to the right and sliced through the pool, sending up a stream of water and hissing steam behind it before crashing into a concrete wall and coming to a stop, half-submerged and smoking.

Zim found himself lying halfway on top of the dashboard with the edge digging into his abdomen. He sat frozen for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the water that lapped against the Voot's dome.

"Computer?" he rasped at last, sliding backwards into his seat. There was no answer. Every light in the cockpit had shut off and the Voot's engine was silent except for the creaking sounds of it rapidly cooling off. Zim swallowed. "Eh. GIR?"

The little robot had ended up behind Zim's seat somewhere. "I wanna do it again!" his high-pitched voice squeaked. Well, he was all right.

"GIR, we have to get out of here," Zim said. He scanned the area outside the Voot—no humans were in sight. No yet, anyway. It seemed their crash hadn't caught anyone's attention. Zim brought the back of his hand up to his face and sniffed. The scent of paste was still there, not as potent as he would have liked, but hopefully the coating was strong enough to avert the effects of this acid-filled bathtub of death. Still, just to be safe, he extended his PAK legs as far as they would go in the Voot and prepared to spring. "Open the dome, GIR."

GIR, his tongue poking out, climbed back into his seat and pressed the automatic release button at the back of the dashboard. The Voot's dome opened, allowing water to spill into the interior. Zim clambered away from it, clawed his way on top of the ship, and leapt onto the concrete siding that ringed the pool.

"Aha!" he said, the PAK legs snapping back away. "Come, GIR! Now we—" He paused and regarded the now-sinking Voot Cruiser. He cringed.

GIR pulled himself onto the side of the pool and sat with his legs dangling in the water, pointing at the downed ship. "Lookie, it's a submarine now!"

"GIR, we've been stranded," Zim said, his eyes narrowing. The ship came to rest gently on the bottom of the pool, several feet underwater. Zim scowled at it. It was mocking him, he knew it. He muttered to himself, "We must find this TARDIS ship and we can't risk exposure…" But now the Voot was out of commission and in danger of discovery. Remembering all too well the last time humans had stumbled onto his ship, he shuddered and turned to GIR. "You stay here and do what you can to make the Voot be… not sunk anymore. I'll look around for the TARDIS."

"Mmkay!" GIR replied.

Zim raised an antenna. "Got that?"

"Yep!" GIR didn't get up from where he sat by the pool. Good enough. Zim nodded, turned, and bounded away as stealthily as he could.

It couldn't take too long to search an entire human city for a little blue box. How big could this place be, anyway, hm? He was an Invader! An Invader admittedly down two resources already—the Voot Cruiser and GIR—but that didn't matter because he could most definitely manage on his own. GIR had never proved to be too much of a resource, anyway.

Luckily he had downloaded the TARDIS's coordinates into his PAK before the crash. He reviewed them again and headed in the direction the Voot had been flying.

"I'll have the TARDIS for you in no time, my Tallest!" he said aloud. "I won't fail you!"

* * *

"Wow, this place is a lot cleaner than my town," Dib said, keeping pace with the Doctor as they headed through Danville. The Doctor had to agree on that point. He hadn't seen much of the town where Dib lived—funny, he had never actually caught the name of it—but it had definitely been much dirtier than this. Plus it had had an odd smell lingering about it.

But where in this big wide city could his precious blue box be hiding? He should've known. He should've _known_ it wouldn't be as easy as popping in on a spaceship, finding the TARDIS, and then whooshing away again with everything all hunky-dory.

"I should've asked Gaz to come along!" Dib said, breaking into the Doctor's thoughts.

"Yes, more children tagging along. That's what I need," the Doctor said. Whoops, he hadn't meant that to be out loud. Dib didn't seem bothered by the remark, though, so he didn't recant it. Instead he took a look around.

It was a bright, clear afternoon here with not a cloud in the sky, unlike the bleary weather in Dib's town. People were bustling about, talking lightheartedly about nice, normal things like sports and whatnot. Dib lowered his x-ray visor and scanned their surroundings. Probably investigating the insides of buildings for the TARDIS. Well, there was something to be said for optimism.

"Are you getting any readings on your screwdriver?" Dib asked. He actually seemed really at ease with all of this. Humans—especially human children—weren't normally this laid-back when suddenly exposed to all of this alien technology. Of course, noting the fact that the kid had an Irken spaceship hidden in his garage, this likely wasn't the first time he had encountered a lot of alien equipment. And besides, it wasn't as if the Doctor had been using any technology but the sonic screwdriver.

Speaking of that, the Doctor examined it, more to humor the boy than anything else since he already knew there were no new readings. "Nope. Nothing different, anyway."

Dib apparently gave up trying to look inside buildings and lifted the x-ray visor over his head again. "Your TARDIS is small, isn't it? How do you expect to find it in this city? It could be anywhere!"

The Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Oh, I don't know. You told me you wanted to be a paranormal investigator, didn't you?" It had been one of the many things Dib had talked about on the trip over here. He did a lot of talking… "Well, you should know better than anyone that if you're all out of leads, you start asking around."

"That won't work. People probably wouldn't remember seeing it," Dib said in a slightly bitter tone.

"One way to find out!" The Doctor walked up to a passerby who was carrying, oddly, a watermelon. "'Scuse me, hello. Have you seen a little blue phonebox materialize anywhere around here?"

The man wrapped his arms protectively around the watermelon. "_Materialize?_ No, I haven't seen anything like that. It sounds like you want the Flynn-Fletcher kids."

"The who?" the Doctor asked.

The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "They live over on Maple Drive. There's always something going on over there. If you're looking for any materializing objects that's where they'll be."

"Oh, good! Much obliged," the Doctor said. "Could I get an—" But the man was already hurrying away. Without giving an address. All right. The Doctor lowered his voice. "It would be nice if he had told us where Maple Drive _was_."

"I can look that up!" Dib said immediately. He retreated to the outside edge of the sidewalk to be out of the way and sat down, pulling out his laptop once again and typing rapidly.

The Doctor stared. "How do you even have Internet?"

Dib didn't look up. "I fixed it to give me WiFi wherever I am."

"…Right." The Doctor didn't bother to question how a kid of ambiguous age would know how to do that.

"Here, I've got a map." Dib stood up and handed the laptop over to the Doctor. It displayed a map leading to Maple Drive.

"Excellent!" The Doctor studied the map long enough to get a pretty good gist of it and strode of in the direction the watermelon-guy had pointed out. Dib tucked the laptop under his arm and hurried after him.

"This place is supposed to be crawling with Bigfeets," the boy said without so much as a pause. "They mostly live in the forests and prey on deer, and occasionally people. There's speculation that they're omnivores, though, like bears, so they probably eat wild berries and things. There's also been one or two sightings of banshees. And someone made a report of the biggest werewolf ever _documented_ somewhere near here!"

Dib then went off on a long tangent about werewolves. One of the Doctor's hearts clenched at the thought of the legend and sorrow bloomed in his chest at the resurface of old memories. He gritted his teeth.

"Anyhow," Dib said after the werewolf spiel, drawing the conversation (or monologue) back to the situation at hand, "What all is the TARDIS capable of, anyway? Why would it be so bad if it fell into the wrong hands? I mean, I guess it'd be bad because you'd lose your spaceship, but…"

"I guess you haven't done much research after all," the Doctor said with a raised eyebrow.

"I couldn't find very much about it!" Dib protested. "Even the best sources only had a little information. Like the full name, Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"Well, it's a time machine." The Doctor examined his sonic screwdriver again but it still wasn't saying anything useful.

He didn't turn around but he could tell that Dib was looking at him like he was an idiot. "I know about _that_. It's one of the few things all the sources _do _say. And it's right there in the name, y'know?"

"Yes, I know," the Doctor said. "And apparently you don't care if an object with complete power over time and space falls into the wrong hands."

"Don't tons of alien races have that kind of technology?" Dib asked, sounding confused. The Doctor spun around to look at him.

"What? Time Lords, Daleks! The only races with temporal capabilities! At least in _this_ current time line. And I guess now there isn't really…_ anything_… I'm the only…" He trailed off. "Come on, we turn here."

They headed onto a neighborhood street lined with houses on both sides. He paused, unsure which was the right house. And everyone had disappeared—there was no one around to ask.

…Except for one teenage boy walking down the sidewalk. Once again, the Doctor ran up to a complete stranger to ask for directions.

"Ooh, trenchcoats," the teenager said when he noticed them, eyeing the Doctor's and Dib's coats. "You're into detective movies, huh? I'm more into fantasy."

"Yes, detective movies," the Doctor said. "Do you by any chance know of a Flynn-Fletcher residence somewhere around here?"

The boy frowned slightly. "You mean Phineas and Ferb's house?" he said in distaste. "I just came from there looking for my brother. He wasn't there, which was weird. They're doing some sort of light show."

"Which house is it?" Dib asked.

The teenager pointed down the road. "Over there. Yellow sides, brown roof, giant tree in the backyard. You really can't miss it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take my leave and find my brother." He left, calling unnecessarily loudly, "IRVING!"

"I guess we're looking for a yellow house with a brown roof," the Doctor said. It seemed that absolutely no one in this town was all that helpful when it came to directions.

* * *

Zim pressed his back up against the side of a human house, concealed in shadows. He blinked to verify what he was seeing. Then his face broke into a silent snarl. Who should be standing on the opposite sidewalk, only a few yards away, but the _Dib_. Zim clenched the siding of the house and felt his claws unsheathe slightly and bite at the wood through his gloves. The Dib-filth was standing with a disgustingly tall human and the two of them were talking as if on friendly terms. Perhaps this new human was a new ally of Dib's. Zim smirked. If his archenemy's new partnership went anything like the former one, Zim had nothing to worry about. Not that he'd have anything to worry about either way. Because Dib was dumb. And Zim was amazing.

The Dib-human must have been looking for the TARDIS as well. Why else would he be here? He might somehow know where it was, too, and save Zim from a long search of the city.

Keeping to the shadows, well aware that he was out in public without his disguise, he slipped out from beside the building and set off in pursuit of his hated rival.

* * *

The Doctor rapped on the door, waited a moment, and then rang the bell. Dib stood on the porch next to him.

"Any idea where to look if the TARDIS isn't here?" he asked.

"Nope!" the Doctor replied. He rocked back and forth on his heels. Dib seemed a bit disconcerted by his seeming lack of worry. The Doctor did hope the TARDIS was here, though. In no way did he fancy the thought of running around the city all day looking for it.

"Oh, hi!" someone said. The Doctor turned to see a boy with red hair and an orange-and-white striped shirt emerge from behind the house. "Are you here to deliver the giant disco ball?"

"No, no disco ball, sorry," the Doctor said. He grimaced and directed a remark to Dib, "Never liked disco, t'be honest." He looked back at the red-haired boy. "Sorry. That was out loud, wasn't it? We're just here to ask some questions."

"Oh, okay!" the boy said. He didn't seem at all fazed by the Doctor and Dib's sudden appearance. "Well, you can come to the backyard if you want. We're setting up for a big fireworks display and laser show we're having later!" He motioned for them to come with him. The Doctor looked down at Dib, shrugged one should, and followed.

"I'm Phineas, by the way," the boy said. "My brother Ferb is setting up the fireworks."

Ah, good, the right names. At least they had come to the right place. "I'm the Doctor," he said. "And this is my tag-along, Dib…" He looked down at Dib in confusion. "Hang on, you never told me your last name."

"That's right," Dib said. He didn't expand on that. Fair enough, the Doctor supposed.

They entered the backyard to see another boy, this one with strange green hair, working on setting up fireworks. The Doctor watched him closely for a moment, but the boy seemed to know what he was doing.

"One of the bigger fireworks did accidentally go off a little earlier," Phineas admitted, as if reading the Doctor's thoughts. "I'm pretty sure we didn't hit anything, though. Hey, Ferb!" The boy with green hair glanced up from his work. "Look, some interviewers came over! They probably want to know about the lasers!"

"Oh, we're not interviewers!" Dib said.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, we're just looking for something. You know. Just looking." He clucked his tongue and glanced around the yard. "That's what I had questions about. Namely. Have you seen a blue phonebooth anywhere? Possibly materialized out of thin air?" He made a diving motion with his hand. "_Fwoosh?_"

"Hm, no, not really," Phineas said, looking thoughtful. "I'm not sure I've ever even seen a phonebooth except in England. Ferb?" He glanced over at his brother, who had come over to meet them.

"I've seen phonebooths, just not blue ones," the green-haired boy, Ferb, said. He spoke with a British accent.

"Great," the Doctor said. "Thank you." He took a deep breath and stepped a little bit away from them, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and doing another scan. No TARDIS signals in the immediate area.

"Sorry we haven't seen your phonebooth," Phineas said. "You guys can stay for the laser show, if you want. It's gonna be awesome! An alien race even offered to help us out with it!"

"_What_." Both the Doctor's and Dib's heads whipped up at that, though Dib looked considerably more excited.

"What?" he said. "You mean you believe in—"

"What _kind_ of alien race?" the Doctor demanded, both hearts beating considerably faster.

"Well, here, I'll introduce you!" Phineas said. He went over to the big tree that the teenager had mentioned, next to which stood some kind of metal contraption likely intended to be part of the laser show. Phineas knocked on it a few times. "Guys, some people out here want to meet you. Are you busy?"

_No, we're not busy_.

The Doctor blinked. That hadn't been a real voice! It was telepathy! Well, that ruled out a large number of the alien races he'd been worried about when Phineas mentioned meeting one. Now, what telepathic races did he know of that could be here…?

Two formless, glowing, bright blue shapes emerged from the laser contraption. They flew through the air before stopping in front of the Doctor and taking on the form of… of… a pair of giant floating shoes.

Beside him, Dib took a sharp, almost painful-sounding intake of breath.

_Hello_, one of the glowing shoes said. Or projected. The Doctor wasn't even sure if just one of them had said it, it may have been both of them. Impossible to tell.

"Hel_lo!_" the Doctor said, a broad smile crossing his face. "I've never seen anything like _you_ before! Your species, I mean, not giant flying shoes. You'd be amazed how often floating footwear comes up. So what are you, then?"

_We are the Meekrob_, the creatures said.

"Beings of pure energy," Dib said numbly, as the aliens said the exact same thing. Dib held his forehead and winced.

"Well isn't _that _impressive." The Doctor stepped closer to the Meekrob and looked them up and down. "I take it that means you can shape-shift? Why would you want to look like a pair of shoes?"

_Humans like you cannot comprehend our true form_, the Meekrob said. Dib rubbed his head again and the Doctor stepped back.

"Oh, I dunno, I can comprehend a lot of things," he said. "You'd be surprised."

Dib looked up at him, still clenching his forehead. "But you're not human!"

"I did say they'd be surprised." The Doctor regarded the Meekrob again. "Come on then, what do you _really _look like?"

_You cannot comprehend our true form!_ one of the Meekrob said. _Seriously. You'll burst into flame_.

"No we won't," Dib said. He had straightened up and planted his hands on his hips. "You just look like flying sea creatures."

_We do NOT_, said one Meekrob, sounding a bit miffed. The two aliens turned toward each other. _Can humans comprehend sea creatures?_

"I'd say so," the Doctor said.

"Yeah, and we've seen plenty of weird-looking aliens!" Phineas added. The Doctor had almost forgotten he was there. "Ferb, remember that time we went to look at our star and ended up owning an interstellar milkshake bar?"

"Yes, I think so," Ferb replied.

_Very well_, the Meekrob sighed. _But don't blame us if your eyeballs melt out of your skulls._

That was a bit morbid. The Doctor watched as the two Meekrob hesitated for a moment, then flashed bright white and became hovering creatures that looked like some sort of cross between a human's idea of a fairy and, as Dib had said, creatures that might be found in the dark depths of the sea. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. The creatures were elegant, beautiful, and delicate-looking, but something about them made you realize they were much stronger than they appeared. Ah, he did so love to find new alien races.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" the Doctor said with a clap of his hands. "And no melting eyeballs to be seen! So what are you doing here, anyway?"

_We received a strange signal_, one of the Meekrob replied, facing its large, dark eyes toward the Doctor. _It was old. We came here hoping that whatever it was could help us in our war against the Irkens_.

The Doctor's eyebrows roe even higher and he hoped he didn't look too ridiculous. "Irkens?"

"I told you, they're everywhere," Dib muttered.

"What are Irkens?" Phineas asked.

"A race of giant bugs that are trying to take over the universe," Dib said.

The Doctor shook his head. "Don't do that, I don't like generalizations." He addressed the Meekrob again. "So you got some sort of signal? When?"

_A few human hours ago_.

"The TARDIS," the Doctor said to himself. So he had been right. He wasn't the only one drawn to this city to find it. The creatures seemed pretty benevolent, or at the very least neutral. But he had _no idea_ who else might be here. "So you came here looking for whatever as transmitting the signal… and now you're helping a couple of kids with a laser show? How'd you get here, anyway?"

_We are creatures of PURE ENERGY_, the Meekrob said, as if it should be obvious how they managed to get to Earth from some other planet in the space of a few short hours. _We lost the signal soon after we arrived and were unable to pick it up again. Then we came across these humans and they requested our help with this entertainment. We have been looking for allies, so we agreed._

_Plus, it's fun_, the other Meekrob said.

"Whoa, you didn't tell us you were fighting universe-conquering aliens!" Phineas said in astonishment. "If you need our help, sure, we'd be happy to help you!"

The Doctor extricated himself from the conversation. Much as he wanted to find out more about the energy beings, the Meekrob, they needed to find the TARDIS. ASAP. "We need to get going."

"Oh. Okay," Phineas said. "Well, hey, good luck finding your phonebooth! You're welcome to come back later tonight, if you want, for the light show!"

"We'll be sure to keep that in mind," the Doctor promised. He motioned for Dib to follow and left through the gate. Dib waved an awkward goodbye to Phineas and Ferb and hurried after him.

"They believed in aliens!" Dib gushed when he caught up. "I can't believe it! There goes our only lead, though." The Doctor's stomach clenched. He'd said "our." The kid wasn't supposed to be a part of this. This was all wrong!

"Dib," the Doctor said, and it occurred to him that this might be the first time he had referred to the boy by name.

Dib looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Wouldn't you rather stay here?"

"Oh. No," Dib replied.

The Doctor's mouth twitched. "Really. You'd rather go chasing around the city all day with me than stay and talk to those aliens and those kids."

"Hey, as far as I know, I'm the only one in the Swollen Eyeballs who's gotten to talk to a Time Lord!" Dib said. "I can't just leave _now_. And besides, I still want to see the TARDIS."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "What are the Swollen Eyeballs? Would you tell me what that is?"

"My secret paranormal agency," Dib replied "…Don't tell anyone about it."

"Oh, don't worry about that," the Doctor said.

"Hey! Wait!" someone called. The Doctor and Dib both turned around to look, spotting Phineas running toward them. "I forgot to tell you! There's one place your phonebooth might be. It's a tall purple building downtown. You can't really miss it. It doesn't look like any of the other buildings, and it's got a name on the side that says something like 'evil incorporated.' I think that's just an unfortunate acronym. But anyway, weird stuff happens over there sometimes. It's one place to check, anyway."

"Oh yeah, I saw that building when we were flying over!" Dib realized.

"Thanks!" the Doctor said. "We'll try there next, then! See if we can find a bus to take us over."

"Didn't you say you don't like buses?" Dib asked.

The Doctor had pulled out his sonic screwdriver and was examining it again. "Still no change in the TARDIS signal. I'd rather take a bus than walk, wouldn't you?"

When Dib nodded slowly in agreement, the Doctor put away the sonic again and started running down the sidewalk once more. "Alrighty, then… ALLONS-Y!"

* * *

A/N: Because you can't have a Phineas and Ferb crossover without Phineas and Ferb


End file.
